January 13: Still Enjoying Cortez, Great Seafood & Terri & Scott's Hospitality

I thought I'd give Linda a "blog break" and post this one - I'm sure she won't let me do too many! We spent Tuesday and Wednesday with Terri & Scott. Terri and I went for a walk Tuesday morning and got a picture of one lone bird that braved the cold and wind as well as a picture of the pond near their house. Too cold to see an alligator although we know they are in there. We spent the days sightseeing and the nights in their very comfy and warm house. We are becoming very spoiled. Terri & Scott have been our chauffeurs, tour guides and entertainers. The sun came out for a while and we had an enjoyable walk around Anne Marie, a nice little town with many fun shops and art work. There were many Greek sculptures as well as other artwork. Neptune was my personal favorite! And big surprise, there happened to be a fudge shop right on our path! After the fudge snack, we went to another wonderful seafood restaurant that was right on the beach. We were out of the wind and in the sun so we were able to eat outside without freezing. We returned back to the boat just in time to meet Char & Ted, friends of Terri & Scott that have been following our blog. We had a great time on the fly bridge talking and watching the sunset, (thanks yet again to the plastic that blocked the cold wind). Wednesday was another fun day. We went out to breakfast at a french crepe restaurant, very yummy. We did a little shopping for provisions and while we were out, Linda finally made it to MacDonald's for lunch. Next it was on to the Mote Aquarium. It is a research facility and their displays were interesting as well as informative. They even had a couple movies, Linda's favorite museum attraction. The black"blob" is a Giant Frog fish. It is one of the most unusual looking fish we had ever seen. The picture is hard to make out but here is a link to a video of a red frog fish. http://www.oceanfootage.com/video_clips/NH05_346 The puffer fish reminded us of scuba diving in Florida years ago when we saw a very large puffer fish. It looked just like this one only much larger! We also got some excellent views of manatees. They are more fun to see in an aquarium because in the wild they only stick their noses out of the water to breathe, so it is hard to get a good look at them from the boat. (No jumping like dolphins but still fun to see.) As you can see from the chart, they are quite large.)

After working up an appetite at the aquarium we decided a visit to a seafood restaurant that we discovered yesterday at the end of the Rod & Reel pier, was in order. The restaurant was at the end of a short pier and it was quickly apparent that it was still very cold and quite windy. The restaurant was kind of rustic but fortunately very warm and the seafood gumbo was excellent, not to mention the blackened Grouper sandwiches & Scott's Grouper Reuben sandwich. I spent Thursday morning charting the rest of our trip from here to Marathon. The weather improves tomorrow and we hope to anchor out at some nice state parks along the way. We anticipate being at Banana Bay Marina located on Marathon Key, about January 24th. That will be our home base for February as we enjoy the Florida Keys, and hopefully some warm weather.